In Partnership with the British Trust for
Ornithology
In Partnership with the British Trust for
Ornithology
Working to produce an Atlas of Wintering & Breeding Birds in
Please Help with The
Area Co-ordinators
Fieldwork is being organised by nine local Area Co-ordinators (ACOs). They will provide each helper with advice, clear guidance on what to look for and forms to record it all.
From now on the Area Co-ordinators’ main job is to ensure that all tetrads reach the target levels for species and breeding status required to provide an accurate picture of Shropshire’s birds at this point in time. They are also required to validate records to ensure that errors due to misidentification, data entry and incorrect grid references are eliminated from the final publications.
Contact details for ACO's are : -
| Area | Co-ordinator's Name | Co-ordinator's Email address |
| 1. North-west | Allan Dawes | allandawes@btinternet.com |
| 2. North | David Farncombe | davidfarncombe@btinternet.com |
| 3. North-east | Gerry Thomas | gerry.thomas@eds.com |
| 5. North-central | Bob Parker | pbob15@aol.com |
| 6. East | Glenn Bishton | glenn@bishton2.orangehome.co.uk |
| 7. South-west | Leo Smith | leo.smith@dsl.pipex.com |
| 8. South-central | John Arnfield | arnfield.2@osu.edu |
| 9. South-east | Linda Munday | linda.munday@ukgateway.net |
| 10. South | Jim Martin | jim.martin73@tiscali.co.uk |
| Area 4 (West - around Chirbury) has been split, and the northern half (SJ squares) has been added to Area 1 and the southern half (SO squares) has been added to Area 7. | ||
SOS & BTO partnership
The Atlas is a joint partnership between the two organisations. Fieldwork for the BTO national atlas is now complete but the BTO are continuing to support local atlas projects and will maintain the atlas web site until they are completed. The atlas data entered on the website will be returned to the County after each season.
Getting Involved
All but the least diverse tetrads should have at least 40 species present during the winter period and 50 during the breeding season, many will have a much greater number. One even has 96 species recorded in winter (Venus Pool, naturally). The winter coverage map shows which tetrads have fewer than 40 species recorded and the breeding coverage map shows which tetrads have reached the targets set for the previous breeding atlas. Even some common species have yet to be recorded in winter in some of the tetrads with over 40 species already found and in the breeding season many common species have the basic possible breeding code and it should be relatively easy to confirm breeding for these species. A list of all species recorded so far can be viewed on the data home page of the BTO atlas site once you have registered. Alternatively you can get a list from your local area coordinator.
Submitting records
Recording for the BTO national atlas is now complete but the
BTO is keeping the atlas web site open for counties that are continuing with
local atlas projects, so any new records can still be entered as Roving Records
on the atlas website or they can be entered on
Birdtrack.
If using Birdtrack the site needs to be
defined at the tetrad scale or smaller and roving records must have a tetrad
letter otherwise we will not be able to use these records in the local atlas.
The minimum information that we need for the winter period (Nov to Feb) is
species, date, tetrad, number (optional). For the breeding season we also need a
breeding code or the record will not contribute to the breeding atlas. Paper
forms must be returned to the local area coordinator or local atlas organiser,
if you do not have atlas forms just put the above information on a sheet of
paper.
You can spend as much or as little time on this as you wish.
All contributions are valuable.
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